It's in the Knowing
by SaturnineSunshine
Summary: CB. Even after everything, its never really over between Chuck and Blair. "You know, the opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference. And if you hate me, that means you still care. And we are still connected"


**A/N**: I purposely stopped reading spoilers for exactly this reason because I was spoiled anyway and now I'm heartbroken. And always to make myself feel better, I always write a fic about it. Anyway, I was watching DH before I even read the spoilers but then I remembered the quote and I thought that it would be perfect for the impending doom. This is written a little differently than I usually do, because I usually do past tense instead of present, but I really like how this turned out. Tell me what you think. I just wanted to provide a bit of hope for those who read spoilers and I'm just mad at myself for hearing them. Gr.

**Summary**: You know, the opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference. And if you hate me, that means you still care. And we are still connected.

**Disclaimer**: Don't own DH or GG, because if I did Chair would not continually break my heart. And yes, I do watch Desperate Housewives. Deal with it.

_

* * *

_

_You know, the opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference. And if you hate me, that means you still care. And we are still connected._

_-Bree Van de Kamp_

_--Desperate Housewives_

He doesn't think. That's the real problem, he thinks. It's not that sometimes they are so cruel that they just are unable to trust each other or that indiscretions in the past mean trust is in fact a fleeting thing.

It pricks in the back of his mind but it isn't that he doesn't trust her. It's that he doesn't trust himself. He doesn't trust himself to see her plainly. He never could. All she could ever be for him was beautiful but fleeting, perfect but never his. She was never his even when she belonged solely to him and when they couldn't be farther apart, she could belong to no one else.

That was their dynamic.

That was the way they were.

He can never really hate her, he thinks, though her cold eyes cut through his soul and he wonders if there really has been anything he has done that was this bad.

He has blogged cruelly and fooled even her and he knows the receiving end of that as well. They've hurt each other too many times to count and if this is her breaking point, he will surely die.

It has been so long.

It was so long ago that he seeked solace in strangers' arms. Because even while he was pushing her away she was never a stranger. And even as he left her she was still always with him.

He hates this time of year. It's as cold and as empty as the eyes that dare to look into his. It was always this time of year. Frost freezes on the ground as well as around his heart to protect it from being hurt by the hurt in her eyes. When she hurts, he hurts. When he almost falls off of buildings, she was likely to follow.

But not this time.

He wonders if ever again.

It always happens this time of year. He can never remember before year sixteen. His past is wiped blank because he can literally not remember a time anymore when he wasn't with her. Maybe if he could go back there, he would be without her and without this pain and hurt and pain again.

But he would be without her and he thinks that would be worse. At least she can't run from him like he used to. They both belong here like the likes of golden best friends who think themselves better with their talks of modesty.

Well he doesn't have it and he knows she doesn't either. No matter how she turns from him now or why she avoids him, he knows that much. He knows how much he knows her better than he knows himself and he just knows her. That's the way it is. That's the way it should be.

He doesn't know if that is the way it will be.

He shouldn't be surprised anymore. This time of year is always spent alone and he shouldn't have taken her company for granted. He never took her for granted but forget what the past two years' precedence was. He should have remembered.

He should have remembered how both times he hurt her and he had done it again without even thinking. He doesn't know how he does it, but he just does. He doesn't mean to hurt her but he doesn't now how not to. He doesn't know how to not fight fire with fire.

Maybe it would be better this way. No matter how painfully and fully and very completely he loves her with everything he has, maybe they were better apart. Maybe they just hurt each other too much. Maybe they were too similar.

Maybe he was just making excuses.

It was what he did because he could never blame her. It was all his fault and he could never think of anything else. Even when it was her fault, it was his as well because he was the one letting it happen. He was letting them fall apart.

They had already fallen apart. They had broken apart and there was nothing he could do but watch her with shards of himself protruding of his skin, ripping him apart from the inside because when he looked at himself in the mirror, all he could see was her. And all he wanted was for it all to stop. But this thing between them would never stop until the both of them were six feet under.

It was a dark thought. Stumbling drunkenly onto a roof, he could do it again. He could pretend that no one cared.

It was the betrayal, he thinks.

Every time she is forced to look at him he can never bear it. Her eyes were always mirrors and he wonders if she can see the same expression in him. She betrayed him when he betrayed her and this all feels vaguely, vaguely familiar and he wants to scream because without her, he really does have no one.

He wants to get through this because he's starting to realize how really empty his life is without her. Before, he at least had Bart, no matter how detrimental that was to his self esteem.

And she could relate.

But all he has is work and he knows he is turning into Bart. Ripped away was the one woman who could ever touch him and he's just glad that she wasn't pregnant because he is his father's son. And looking into his own son's eyes that would be just like his mother's, he knows he would resent that child for having what he could never keep a hold of.

He is glad. He is glad that at least in some ways, he can not become his father. But he is his father. She was his salvation and she took it all away. It was why he clung close even when she made mistakes so like his.

She didn't need him like he needed her. That was why she could break them off so cleanly and completely. She could always find someone else.

But he never could. He would never find anyone else while she would be able to play it safe and save herself and he would just have to watch.

It's in her eyes, he thinks. They were what always got to him. They broke down his defenses as they welled with tears and he knew for sure the mistakes he had made and how they contributed to him losing her.

Again.

And then it happens.

He wasn't supposed to see it and she wasn't supposed to let him see it, but see it he does and that's when it's all over.

She still loves him, he knows.

It was always in the silences with them. It was in the looks and the tastes. It was how he discovered her and discovered himself. It was how he knew that no one could see into her like he could.

It was never honesty between them. It was always cold and hard and he had to feel away her icy exterior to get that inferno below where he could live and thrive, alwaysalwaysalways.

Her love may be backwards now. It may be the opposite way he needs her, wants her, loves her. It may be all backwards now but that doesn't mean it's not still there. There is still one constant in her backwards love for him in her backwards life that he is thankful is there. Her backwards love still consumes her for him and he knows this might not be the end.

He was sure it was. They had been apart but they had never officially broken up and that was what frightened him. This was different and this was real.

But so were her eyes.

And so was that spark.

She still loves him, he knows.

It may not be the way she used to but he still has that hold over her like she had a hold over him.

Her eyes always gave her away. Innocent dark ones that widened as he pushed the first time and she gasped out with first acute pain than intolerable pleasure.

Sneering ones that pushed him from her bed.

Tear filled ones as he teetered off the edge.

Empty ones that made him sure her love for him had died forever.

Empty ones that meant indifference.

Hope was a dangerous thing. It was one thing a person in his position should never have had. It made him dangerous. Now he wasn't afraid of her feelings. Now he was back.

They _were_ too alike. Fire with fire, lust with sex. Pain and pleasure intermingled in perfection.

He could fight her now.

He could fight for her affection, her attention. He could fight for her love.

He could corner, which would be dangerous for him as well. Because she is too much like him. She will fight back. And it will hurt.

But it will be worth it. Worth her.

Hope is dangerous. Because it could all come crashing down. He could be left in ruins and bleeding out of his whole being for her when she would never come back.

But it was still a spark. A spark that she still felt for him and it was that spark that had started a forest fire and ignited something between them that could never be extinguished.

He could have trapped her.

But he didn't.

He was gentle with her.

He knew it would be hard for her to trust him again. He didn't need that at first. He just needed her. He would be gentle with her now, like he was with her when they all began. They could begin again.

He brushes by her softly and her body stiffens. She doesn't let him look her in the eyes. Maybe she knows her weakness too.

But she really doesn't. Otherwise, she wouldn't be risking it by being near him. It was too disastrous.

He pulls away but notices that she's not moving at all. He's caught her and they both know it.

"I hope I didn't hurt you."

He isn't sure if it's supposed to be a joke or not. But she is so stiff, he begins to wonder. But suddenly her eyes are scarring his and he sees the spark that she should know is encouraging his actions.

"You know that you did," she snaps.

She isn't talking about his caress. He knows this.

"And for that, I am truly sorry," he says genuinely.

"Leave me alone," she utters darkly and attempts to flee from him on broken wings that shattered from the weight of an equally broken heart she carries.

He flies after her on wings that are just beginning to heal. She finally stops but he could go forever. He could follow her forever. He would. Until she let him back, he would do it. It is this truth that he knows frightens her that she must run some more.

"Go away," she says, fury shuddering from her like she doesn't have enough pores to release it from.

"What happened to your indifference, my love?" he husks.

"Stop," she says, her monster snarling defensively at his approach. "Don't you dare."

"You can be so cold to me," he says thoughtfully. "But you're not like that now. Why do you think that is?"

"I hate you," she spits in his direction.

"Good," he says.

He knows that takes her by surprise at her lack of retort.

"Do you know why?"

"You're dead to me."

That hurts. But he doesn't show it.

"If that were true, we wouldn't be here right now," he tells her. "You would be like you were before. You wouldn't react to me at all."

She just looks at him and he is relieved that the deadness does not return to her eyes to greet him with swift heartbreak.

Death frightens him almost as much as her absence does. He takes a tentative step towards her and she reacts again.

"Don't pretend you can fix this just like that," she sneers. He wishes he could kiss that sneer. "You're nothing to me."

"There you go lying to me," he says. "Don't lie to me. I'm the one who can tell, remember? Tell me you hate me. Tell me you wish you can end my pathetic life without you, but don't lie to me."

"There isn't a difference," she seethes.

"You're wrong," he replies. "There's a difference. You don't counteract love with hate. You counteract it with indifference. You can never break the connection we have. And if you hate me, you're just all that closer to loving me."

"I will never love you again," she chokes and he knows she is close to crying.

"Maybe now," he admits, "but not forever."

He is so close he can almost breathe her now.

"You have no idea how much you have hurt me," she whispers. "And you can't take that back."

"I do know," he says. "And I can't take that hurt away, but I can try to make a step each day to be better for you."

"Don't hold your breath."

It's the spark. It's the spark that lets them be so close together without combusting. They can flame without setting each other on fire. But she still freezes. She freezes because she's not indifferent. She's full of fire.

"I won't kiss you now," he promises, "but I'm not giving in either. And I do love you. You can at least believe that."

"It was never a question," she whispers quietly. He wonders if he should turn away now. He wonders if he's pushed her too far. She heard him proclaim in his apologies how much he loved her.

It was he who thought she had whithered and died.

"I hate you," she speaks again. "I hate what you've done to me. What you've resorted me to."

He hesitates at the door before responding. "I love you too."

And now she knows too that he will come back for her.

And now he knows that this isn't the end.


End file.
